INTRANET

Press Release

Local Naval Academy Midshipman Receives Gates Foundation Scholarship

Posted on: February 11, 2014 08:00 EST

Press Release #: #009-14

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – U.S. Naval Academy Midshipman 1st Class (senior) Margaret Gilroy, of Hillsborough, N.J. was recently selected as a 2014 Gates Cambridge Scholar. Gilroy is one of 40 U.S. students to be awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship this year.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship program was established in 2000 and funded by a $210 million donation to the University of Cambridge by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It enables academically outstanding students from outside the United Kingdom with a strong interest in social leadership and responsibility to pursue graduate study at Cambridge.

Gilroy, 21, is a graduate of Hillsborough High School, and is currently an honors systems engineering major and Spanish minor at the Naval Academy. She is also the captain of the Naval Academy marathon team, and founder of the academy’s Girls on the Run volunteer program. Gilroy is conducting research in radiation detection, simulation and mapping as a Bowman Scholar, a scholarship awarded to second class (junior) midshipmen interested in pursuing a future in the nuclear Navy.

Gilroy plans to earn a Master of Philosophy in nuclear energy at the University of Cambridge, after which she will continue her training as a Navy submarine officer.

Founded in 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy today is a prestigious four-year service academy that prepares midshipmen morally, mentally and physically to be professional officers in the naval service. More than 4,400 men and women representing every state in the U.S. and several foreign countries make up the student body, known as the Brigade of Midshipmen. U.S. News

and World Reports has recognized the Naval Academy as a top five undergraduate engineering school and a top 20 best liberal arts college. Midshipmen learn from military and civilian instructors and participate in intercollegiate varsity sports and extracurricular activities. They also study subjects like leadership, ethics, small arms, drill, seamanship and navigation, tactics, naval engineering and weapons, and military law. Upon graduation, midshipmen earn a Bachelor of Science degree in a choice of 25 different subject majors and go on to serve at least five years of exciting and rewarding service as commissioned officers in the U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps.